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NYU’s College of Nursing Awarded the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Evaluating Innovations in Nursing Education Grant

March 18, 2011

Hila Richardson, RN, DrPH, FAAN, Clinical Professor and Associate Dean Undergraduate Program at the NYU College of Nursing has been awarded a grant from Evaluating Innovations in Nursing Education (EIN) to examine the effectiveness of the College’s innovative clinical teaching model used in the undergraduate nursing program.

“We are extremely proud of this award, and it reflects Dr. Richardson’s creativity and leadership. The faculty have been exceptional”, says Terry Fulmer, Erline Perkins McGriff Professor and Dean.

EIN is an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) that supports evaluations of interventions that expand teaching capacity or promote faculty recruitment and retention in nursing schools. The program aims to increase the number of nursing school graduates by evaluating strategies that address the nurse faculty shortage. An important program activity will be disseminating successful strategies for widespread replication in other nursing education settings. Seven grants (of up to $300,000 each) have been awarded; the first cycle of two-year funded projects runs from 2009-2011; the second cycle runs from 2010-2012.

In 2007, the NYU College of Nursing adopted the clinical teaching model as a way to increase student enrollment to address the national nursing shortage, while also facing a shortage of both qualified faculty and appropriate clinical teaching sites. The model uses clinical simulation experiences to substitute for up to half of the clinical days traditionally spent in the hospital for the nursing students in medical-surgical courses. The new clinical teaching model has enabled the College of Nursing to use its faculty in a more effective manner by simultaneously expanding the number of students participating in the simulation lab experience while reducing the size of the clinical groups in the hospital. Students in the four medical-surgical courses are assigned to a clinical group with six people. During the on-campus clinical day, two groups of six students participate in the simulation experience with one faculty member. During the hospital clinical day, one clinical faculty member supervises one group of six students. With the new model, a team of three clinical faculty supervises 24 students over the course of the semester, representing a 30% increase in teaching capacity over the traditional clinical teaching model.

“Extensive use of clinical simulation at NYU aims to provide quality clinical education and make more efficient use of the time of academic faculty members,” said Michael Yedidia, Ph.D., director of the EIN national program office. “The evaluation promises to yield evidence of its impact on teaching productivity and faculty work-life that we believe will be of critical value to the academic nursing community.”

The RWJF- EIN grant at NYU College of Nursing will be directed by Dr. Richardson and Mattia Gilmartin, RN, PhD, the deputy director. The evaluation team is led by Lloyd Goldsamt, PhD, deputy director, National Development of Research Institutes USA, Inc. As RWJF-EIN grantees, Drs. Richardson, Goldsamt, and Gilmartin will join a learning community of nurse leaders to generate evidence and disseminate findings to identify interventions that expand teaching capacity and promote faculty recruitment and retention in nursing education.

New York University College of Nursing

NYU College of Nursing is a global leader in nursing education, research, and practice. It offers a Bachelor of Science in Nursing; Master of Arts and Post-Master’s Certificate Programs; a Doctor of Philosophy in Research Theory and Development, and a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. For more information, visit www.nyu.edu/nursing.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, measureable and timely change. For nearly 40 years, the Foundation has brought experience, commitment, and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. (http://www.rwjf.org/)